


Higanbana

by madzeldacryaotic



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Fix-It, Found Family, Gen, Hide is a BAMF, Hide joins Anteiku, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kaneki gets better, M/M, Multi, Panic Attacks, Physical Abuse, Poetry, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Recovery, Social Justice, Touka is tsundere, ghoul racism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26756686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madzeldacryaotic/pseuds/madzeldacryaotic
Summary: Touka convinces him to stay.He's broken and hurting, and recovery is a long, winding road, but he has more allies than he realizes, and he keeps making more. It's enough to get him feeling hopeful for a better future- not just for him, either- but for everyone.He will bridge the gap between ghouls and humans.(Or: Kaneki Ken saves the world, through literature.)
Relationships: Kaneki Ken | Sasaki Haise/Kirishima Touka, Kaneki Ken | Sasaki Haise/Kirishima Touka/Nagachika Hideyoshi, Kaneki Ken | Sasaki Haise/Nagachika Hideyoshi, Kirishima Touka/Nagachika Hideyoshi
Comments: 95
Kudos: 151





	1. Touka: Coming Home and Hide

**Author's Note:**

> Catered towards- and written by- an Anime Only fan, but contains some elements of the manga because i read spoilers.
> 
> Canon divergence AU where Kaneki stays at Anteiku after the end of the first season's CCG raid of Aogiri Tree. Also, Aogiri's ranks are more depleted by the raid than in canon, so the whole organization goes underground for a while to recover their strength. Ateiku gets a few months or relative peace so Kaneki can start recovering. 
> 
> It's basically an idealized version of the ending of season 1 that I have been brainstorming off and on for like 7 years now. I don't know if there's an audience for this, so honestly this is mostly written for myself.
> 
> The name before the chapter title is whose POV it's from.
> 
> Other notes:  
> -Eto never tips off the CCG about Anteiku  
> -Roma is not a member of the Clowns
> 
> I'll add more details about this timeline as the story progresses.

Touka convinces him to stay. 

‘ _Convinces_ ’ might not be the right term, exactly. It’s more like she sees him starting to walk away- turning to _leave her_ \- and something in her breaks. She gives chase, catches his arm, slides her palm into his, and _begs_.

His eyes catch hers. They had always been grey, but they had _never_ been cold. Nothing about him had been cold, not like _this_. His eyes pass over her without seeing. His nails are ragged and pitch black. His bone white hair practically glows in the low light. She feels sick.

She doesn’t know what they did to him- she can only guess. 

And, maybe it’s selfish of her to ask him to stay after the _wonderful_ job Anteiku did of protecting him, but she doesn’t care anymore. She has _so few_ people in this world that she cares about, she doesn’t think that she could live through another one leaving her. _Especially_ not him, with his stupid optimism for hopeless situations and stubborn compassion for people who don’t deserve it.

And she knows- despite all the evidence to the contrary, she _knows_ that part of him is still there, because when she takes his hand and begs him to come home, he closes his fingers around hers and says, ‘ _okay_.’

\---

Everyone welcomes him back with teary eyes and gentle hugs, which he allows, but doesn’t reciprocate. He doesn’t say a word.

It’s only when Hinami, after crying in his arms for ten minutes, asks him why his hair was white, that he speaks. 

“It’s because I haven’t been outside in a while, Hinami,” he says gently, and then _smiles_.

It’s broken, and sad, and it looks out of place on his lips- but it’s _there_.

And that’s the moment that Touka, who had been a pessimist her whole life, feels like things could maybe- just _maybe_ \- turn out okay.

\---

The day after they get Kaneki back, Hide comes to Anteiku looking for him. 

Kaneki is in his room at the time. He hasn’t left since he went up there last night, and Touka can’t stop cracking open his door every hour to check that he’s still there. He is, every time, sitting motionless in a chair in the middle of the room, eyes unfocused. 

(Yoshimura catches her staring at him, because of course he does. He tells her, _so_ gently, to give him time.)

(She doesn’t ask how much.)

Anteiku isn’t open for business that day. So, when _he_ arrives, he finds the door locked and the windows shuttered. He knocks loudly just as Touka is slinking back to her room from her hourly check.

Thinking it’s just an overly dense customer who can’t read the sign, she marches down the stairs into the café and flings the door open, ready to tell whoever the hell it is to _‘get lost, we’re closed,’_ but then she actually _sees_ whoever the hell it is.

Hideyoshi Nagachika stands in front of her, soaking wet from the rain, and has the _gall_ to sheepishly smile at her and ask if he can come in. 

She knows that he won’t go away until he gets answers, so she says yes, and steps behind the counter to make two coffees before she knows what she’s doing.

_“Making a warm drink for your guest is the guaranteed best gesture of hospitality,” Dad tells her and Ayato from over his shoulder as he makes coffee._

_“But we don’t have guests,” she says, “we_ never _have guests.” Ayato nods enthusiastically, Always following his big sister._

_Dad chuckles. He sets three mugs down on the table and ruffles her hair. “You're right, we don’t. But, one day, when it’s safe to, you and your brother might have guests. And a good way to make new friends is to serve them a hot drink, especially when it’s cold outside.”_

Hide sits silently at the counter and watches. When she’s done, he accepts his cup with a nod of thanks and takes slow sips without speaking. 

It thoroughly unnerves her. He’s very different. Very quiet. His usual blindingly bright smile is gone. There are bags underneath his eyes and his clothes are dark and inconspicuous. His hair is unwashed, and the dark roots of it are overtaking the blonde-dyed ends.

She can tell he’s just biding his time before he demands an explanation from her. It’s the only reason why he’d be here in the first place.

After a minute of loaded silence, she loses her patience and speaks first. “How the _hell_ do you know he’s here?”

“ _Oh thank God,”_ he breathes like it had been punched out of him.

“You _didn’t know!?_ ”

“I suspected. _Hoped_.” He puts a hand to his chest like his heart is physically hurting him.

 _“How.”_ She demands. “He’s still listed as missing. _No one_ has seen him.”

He smirks, but it looks more pained than anything smug. “ _I_ saw him. I was there. On the night of the raid. On the sidelines,” he says slowly, carefully eyeing her.

Touka’s blood runs cold as ice and she _freezes_ with it. 

He knows. He knows. He _knows_.

She mistook his cheery chatter as coming from stupidity, his blinding trust as coming from naiveté. She saw him as Kaneki’s oblivious, loudmouth, human add-on when really, he had been _watching_ and _knowing_.

“...How long?” She asks with a calmness she didn’t know she had.

“Since the beginning.” His voice is flat, emotionless. “Since the days after his _‘accident.’”_

“...Tell me why I shouldn’t just kill you now,” she says low, deadly. Because really, she should. 

The only reason she _hasn’t_ yet is because...

He meets her eyes without fear when he says, “Because Kaneki is my best friend, and I love him, ghoul or not. I know you won’t believe me when I tell you I have nothing against ghouls, if they live peacefully like Anteiku does. But you _will_ believe me when I say that I would _never_ do anything to hurt Kaneki. So, trust in that.”

And, despite every instinct in her body telling her to kill him, she does. Because she _knows_ , and because she’s the same.

“I’m not going to report Anteiku or _anyone_ to the CCG. I never will. You’re all just trying to fucking _live_. I don’t think that’s wrong.” Touka eyes him suspiciously, and he sighs. “You’re also Kaneki’s friends, and getting you killed would hurt him. Are you getting it yet? I’m not your enemy.” 

He pauses, and a small, sad grin forms on his face. “I was actually hoping we could be friends. Kaneki cares about you a whole lot. I think he’d like it if we got along… Sooo, let’s start over.” He sticks his hand out, and Touka almost jumps at the sudden movement. 

“I’m Hideyoshi Nagachika, but my friends just call me Hide,” he says, and waits.

Touka methodically, reluctantly, calms the bloodlust in her veins. She breathes deeply, and thinks. Weighs her options. Looks at his outstretched hand, then back into his eyes. He waits. 

Slowly, carefully, she raises her hand and lightly grabs his. 

She swallows past her dry mouth and says, “My name is Touka Kirishima, and I… I underestimated you.” 

It’s so hard for her to admit, it almost gets stuck in her throat. She knows that Hide recognizes it as the olive branch and apology that it’s meant to be because he quickly adds, “It’s okay, most people do.” His smile is wide and genuine.

He shakes her hand once, then lets go. They awkwardly stare at each other for a long time, refusing to mention the elephant in the room. He breaks the silence. 

“He won’t see me, will he.” It’s not stated as a question. 

“No. Not… Not for a while, I think,” she answers honestly.

He sighs and scrubs a hand down his face. He looks defeated. 

And maybe it’s because he looks too similar to her own reflection, or because she needs _one_ of them to say it out loud, but she finds herself adding, “He’ll get better. He just needs… Time.”

(He doesn’t ask how much.)

He nods, stands, picks up his bag, and slings it over his shoulder. Touka walks with him towards the door.

“I’ll be back to check in from time to time. Maybe to see if I can pass along some info about CCG movements- because, I uh… I work there,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.

She whirls around, ready to yell, attack him, _something_ , but his arms come up in an ‘I surrender’ position and he quickly burts, “AS A MAIL CARRIER, AS A MAIL CARRIER!”

“You didn’t think to mention this _sooner!?_ ” She growls.

“You would have killed me on the spot if I did! Besides, this is a _good_ thing for you- you have an informant now!” He smiles nervously, and it pisses her off. 

But, unfortunately, he’s right on both accounts. Her lips press together in anxiety and glares at him, but she nods tersely. He sighs and lowers his arms.

He stuffs his hands into his jacket pockets and sheepishly grins at her. “Ah… Thanks. For not killing me.” 

She scoffs and crosses her arms, refusing to play nice with him after he caught her off guard like that. “I might change my mind if you don’t get out of here,” she says, and tries to mean it.

“Right,” he replies and steps toward the exit.

Then, as he cracks the door open to leave, he pauses. Over his shoulder, he says, softly, “Thank you for the coffee, Touka. It was really good.”

She blinks in surprise, then looks away in embarrassment. 

“Yeah, Yeah. Get outta here already,” she mumbles.

He smiles and steps out into the rain.

_A good way to make new friends is to serve them a hot drink._

Making friends has never been Touka’s strong suit, but she’s willing to try, if it’s for Kaneki.


	2. Touka: A New Routine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so I know in the anime, after the torture he went through Kaneki kind of just loses/bottles up all his emotions, and that's a valid take on his possible coping mechanism when you're surrounded by your enemies, but I went about it differently. In this fic, he has a safe environment right now, so he starts to make progress in at least expressing some of his emotions, even if they come out ugly. 
> 
> Also, in the future, I plan to show more of Kaneki's recovery in depth, including his POV, but right now we're just mainly focusing on Hide's re-entry into his life.
> 
> One more note: I don't care what canon says about ghouls preferring to eat alone bc they're edgelords or whatever, the Anteiku crew has group meals and no one can tell me otherwise.

Touka can’t read Kaneki anymore, but that doesn’t mean he’s not in there.

He doesn’t speak much anymore, but he still helps Hinami with her vocabulary by writing down the definitions for her in precise, perfect characters. His eyes look clear. His handwriting is the same as before.

He doesn’t take any hours at the café, of course, but he still takes his coffee at 6 a.m. every morning before opening, and sits in silence while sipping it, keeping Yoshimura company as he prepares the day’s food.

He even starts eating with the rest of them, when they get a new body in, and although he doesn’t ever join the conversation, she can tell he’s listening by the way his face will twitch after a joke told, or a story embellished, like he is trying to remember how to smile properly.

His _other_ new habits are more concerning. 

He cracks his fingers almost constantly, and every time he does, he mutters to himself. He spends the long hours of the day in his room, staring deeply into nothing. He avoids most forms of physical contact. Some days, the bad days, he laughs and cries and screams at nothing at all, and the fits can last hours before he comes back to himself. 

The nights are the worst. The first few nights he tries to sleep, he wakes up screaming, unaware of his surroundings, his kagune wildly shredding anything that gets too close. 

It’s Yomo who offers a solution to this problem, after restraining him for the third night in a row. 

On the bad nights, Kaneki could spar with him until he’s gotten it out of his system. 

At first, Kaneki refuses. Touka knows it’s because he’s scared of himself- of his new strength. Everyone in Anteiku can see he doesn’t currently have the self control to hold back. They hear it in his screams during some of his fits- screams of rage so overwhelming it can’t be contained in his body. If he fights, it would be to the death.

Yomo insists he can hold his own. 

After a week of little to no sleep, Kaneki relents. 

Touka and Yoshimura observe, ready to restrain Kaneki if need be, but their presence proves to be unnecessary, in the end. 

Kaneki fights like a man possessed, bloodthirsty and savage, blood dripping from his ignored injuries, eyes unfocussed and murderous, singular in his intention to kill. All Yomo has to do is stay on the defensive long enough for his opponent to tire himself out, and finally, blessedly, collapse from one blow too many.

It becomes an almost nightly routine for them, and Kaneki is finally able to find _some_ amount of restful sleep because of it.

Touka hates it. She feels sick to her stomach every second she sees him like that. She stops volunteering to observe.

But, she continues to shadow him in her free time, and continues to find quiet reminders that the beast she sees when he fights isn’t who he is, deep down. 

Small moments when he softly answers a question from Hinami, when he wordlessly helps her set up chairs in the café in the morning, when he comes down from one of his fits and apologizes to anyone that will listen.

It’s enough to get her feeling hopeful.

\---

During the day, while Kaneki is inactive and confined to his room, Hide drops by like he promised. 

At this point, the cafe is up and running normally, so they serve him like any other customer. While she’s taking his order, though, he slips in things like, _there aren’t many birds out today, isn’t that weird?_ And _the birds seem to be focused on recovering from that bad storm the other night, not very active these days._

(The _birds_ , of course, refer to the Doves.) 

He quickly and thoroughly charms Roma with his easygoing, positive personality. He and Koma never stop making bad puns in order to one-up each other. Irimi reserves a fond smile for his visits. He teases Yomo by coming up with a different nickname for him every day. He and Yoshimura have long, pleasant conversations after lunch rush.

Even Hinami, who can only be down in the café after hours, starts a blossoming friendship with him during the times he helps them clean up for the day. They spend an ungodly amount of time perfecting an overly complicated secret handshake.

Nishiki, however, gets agitated when he starts spending too much time at Anteiku. Touka knows it’s because he suspects that Hide knows more than he’s letting on. He’s too much of a paranoid bastard to accept that ‘ _maybe Hide just likes our coffee, idiot_.’ 

The fact that he’s right doesn’t help.

Hide picks up on it, because he picks up on literally everything, apparently. He asks her one day how everyone would respond to him knowing what they are. Touka answers that they would probably kill him. Especially Nishiki.

The dipshit replies that _he wants to tell them anyway._

Touka starts trying to explain to him what a stupid idea that is, but then he starts spouting off idealistic shit like, _‘I could help more if everyone knows that I know,’_ and _‘I’ve already thrown in my lot with you guys,’_ and _‘I don’t want my best friend to feel like he has to hide part of himself from me.’_

She wants to hate him for how unflinchingly, stupidly loyal he is, but, unfortunately for her, he’s also _way_ too compassionate in the face of her brashness for her to ever hate him. There are not many people who have seen her full, unfiltered personality and chose to stick around afterwards. She has to keep them where she can find them.

And, she admits, despite being a _hopeless_ optimist, he can also read people like she never could. 

So, when he says there’s a chance it could work out, she lets herself be convinced, and Hide takes the leap two weeks later.


	3. Hide: Welcome to Anteiku

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After this chapter, the updates will probably be coming out more slowly, just a heads up.
> 
> I just want to say I LOVE writing from Hide's point of view because he is very smart and he never misses anything. That boy can read people like an open book.
> 
> Also, I have a confession... I haven't read or watched Tokyo Ghoul in at least 3 years, so honestly a lot of the details are fuzzy to me. Hopefully I got the characterization of the more minor characters right.

It’s after hours, but Hide is still at Anteiku, helping clean up. It was a busy day, so there’s a lot of cleaning to go around.

He and Hinami are assigned to wiping down the tables, but Hide makes the task more interesting by starting up a game to see who can get the most pieces of wet napkin to stick to the back of Yomo’s shirt before he notices. 

He jokingly boos when Hinami scores her fourth point in a row. She giggles, and they both quickly scramble to start wiping the table when Yomo pauses sweeping to stare at them. 

(Hide _knows_ he’s pretending not to notice, because on Hinami’s turns, he stays more still than usual, and the corner of his mouth twitches upward when she quietly cheers.)

Touka and Yoshimura are packing away the food, Koma and Irimi are doing dishes, and Roma is wiping down the chairs. Nishiki is on his phone, leaning against the counter he’s supposed to be clearing, and shooting Hide nasty looks when he thinks he’s not looking.

Hinami’s badly stifled laughter is echoing through the room, and Roma is singing to herself quietly. Dishes are clanging, the sink is running. 

Hide never thought it could be so peaceful, to be friends with a community of ghouls. 

He prays that things can still be the same after he tells them that he’s known what they were all along.

Tonight.

Right now.

_“So Kaneki says to me, ‘I didn’t want to worry you. I’m sorry,’ as if he could hide a bad case of the flu for more than two seconds. I_ swear _, he’s never thought of himself in his whole life, that’s just the kind of guy he is.”_

 _“Oh my. He was_ always _that selfless, then?”_

_“As long as I’ve known him,” Hide laughs and pauses to take an enthusiastic bite of his sandwich. Across from him, Yoshimura hums and sips his coffee._

_He and Yoshimura are sharing lunch, as usual; a ritual started by Yoshimura asking to join him out of the blue one day._

_(Hide can guess as to why--- a human sticking his nose into things he doesn’t understand in his desperation to find his ‘missing’ friend (who is currently just upstairs from them) is a recipe for disaster. Yoshimura is likely assessing how much of a threat Hide can be through the guise of these lunches, and Hide doesn’t blame him._

_It doesn’t hurt that the old guy is actually a really good conversationalist, with surprisingly dry wit to boot. He has a feeling that not much escapes his notice, either._

_Hide finds himself liking him immediately.)_

_Anteiku is mildly busy at the moment, with the afternoon rush just starting to peter out. Chatter fills the tables around them, and the sunlight streaming in from the windows is making him feel more safe than usual._

_Maybe that’s why, when Yoshimura reaches down to pick up his own sandwich, Hide decides to put all his cards on the table, and says quietly, “You don’t need to eat that in front of me, Sir.”_

_Hide watches him very closely for any negative response. He’s reasonably sure that Yoshimura already suspects Hide knows more than he’s letting on, but he’s read people wrong before, so he mentally prepares himself for any outcome._

_All Yoshimura does is pause and raise an eyebrow before continuing to lift his sandwich and take a bite, looking him straight in the eye._

_Hide doesn’t know what it tastes like to him, except for the fact that it’s likely worse than anything that Hide will ever taste in his life, and the old man’s face doesn’t even twitch._

_He’s fairly certain he’s being intimidated, and he can admit- without shame- that it’s pretty effective._

_Yoshimura puts the sandwich back down on his plate and hums thoughtfully. He says nothing for a long time, and Hide shoves down the fear that is rising in his stomach and acts perfectly normal._

_Patience. Hide is_ really _fucking good at patience._

_After a minute, Yoshimura seems to be done thinking. He asks, “Does Touka know where you work?”_

_Of_ course _the guy knows he works at the CCG. Hide has no idea how he got that information, but he somehow isn’t surprised._

_“Yeah.”_

_“And she still trusts you. Hmm. How exactly did you manage to pull that one off?” His voice has laughter in it._

_Hide isn’t sure if it’s a rhetorical question, so he answers._

_“I told her the truth, Sir.”_

_“And that is?”_

_“...That I know the world isn’t black and white. I know plenty of humans in the CCG that are bad, and I know plenty of ghouls that are good. I know that the people at Anteiku are just trying to live, and to help others live. You helped Kaneki, Sir. You saved his life- are_ actively _saving his life, right now, by letting him stay. I’m just trying to repay some of it back by keeping an eye out- for_ all _of you- If you’ll let me,” Hide replies, honestly._

_Yoshimura nods his head and smiles sadly._

_“That’s very noble of you, Hide… But I’m afraid you don’t quite know what you’re getting into.”_

_“...Maybe not entirely, but-”_

_“It’s unimaginably dangerous, for a human to enter the ghoul world, and that’s not even taking into account your continued association with the CCG. I’m afraid you would-”_

_“I won’t stop,” Hide interrupts, and edges steel into his voice. “Whether or not I have your cooperation, I won’t stop. I’ll stay away from your people, if you tell me to, but I won’t stop finding a way to help Kaneki. Helping Anteiku as a whole is just the easiest way to do that._

_As for the consequences--- I’ve already_ been _in danger, for doing absolutely nothing. Nishiki almost killed me, with one kick, just to be alone with Kaneki- just because I was in the way.” He pauses to laugh, bitterly. “I’m not under any illusions about my survival rate, Sir. I just figured my odds would be better if I had more allies, and_ you _could benefit from some extra information. A win-win, all around.”_

_Hide finishes his piece and leans back in his chair. Yoshimura waits until he’s completely finished and levels him an unimpressed look._

_“That self-deprecating pragmatism is quite unnecessary, young man. Additionally, It’s rude to interrupt when another is speaking.”_

_Hide feels his anger spike at the dismissal, hot and heavy, but he keeps his mouth shut and his face neutral._

_“Before you interrupted me as you did, I was about to warn you against the possible dangers involved in your continued pursuit of this path, yes, but I was not about to refuse your offer outright,” He says._

_Hide’s eyes widen and his anger is gone in a second, replaced quickly by hope swooping into his stomach. He leans forward in his chair._

_Yoshimura continues, “I have kept this place safe for a long time.” His gaze roams around the café, fondly taking in the atmosphere. “One of the ways I have done so is trusting in my instincts. Recently, my instincts are telling me that a major change is coming. I do not know if it will be for the better or worse, but it’s coming all the same… And I feel almost certain that Kaneki is the catalyst. He’ll need all the support he can get, and that support needs to be unified.”_

_Hide swallows. “Does this mean… You’ll let me help you by spying on the CCG?”_

_“Yes, but you sell yourself short, my boy,” He answers. “I’m saying that you’re one of_ us _now.”_

_Hide doesn’t quite follow. “What?”_

_Yoshimura lifts his coffee and smiles. “Welcome to Anteiku.”_

So Hide knows, at the very least, he has Yoshimura’s acceptance. 

It’s the others he’s worried about.

His thoughts are interrupted by Yoshimura meeting his eyes from across the café. One of the old man’s eyebrows raise, inquiring. 

_“If you wish to tell the others, I can guarantee your physical safety, but not their acceptance. They might distance themselves from you, or maybe even lash out, in fear. Are you willing to accept the possibility that you may lose their trust?”_

Hide breathes deeply, then nods back, once. 

_“Despite how much lying I do daily, Sir, I never liked it much. I’d rather not lie to my friends any longer, even if that means losing them.”_

At his nod, Yoshimura politely clears his throat, and the café falls silent as all eyes turn to him.

“Everyone, I believe Hide has something to say,” He announces, and all eyes turn to Hide now. 

His first instinct is to look towards Touka. Distantly, he realizes she looks terrified, like a rabbit caught in headlights.

An odd sort of calm overtakes him, then. His face falls into a bright smile, his old familiar mask, and he sees the lines in her brow waver and smooth out, for just a second. 

He keeps his eyes only on _her_ when he takes a deep breath and says, “I know everyone in this room except me is a ghoul. I’ve known for… A long time now, and-”

He gets no further before something rushes towards him, a flash of shining blue emanating from somewhere and overtaking his vision- 

But then Hide is being yanked back, abruptly, and he ends up with a table at his back, elbow resting on it to catch himself, and Touka standing next to him. She’s still clutching his forearm where she grabbed it to pull him by. Her eyes… Her eyes are black, with blood red veins spider webbing like cracks out from her equally blood red pupils. 

He’s never seen a ghoul’s eyes in person before, and for whatever reason, his first thought is ‘ _beautiful.’_

Her face is pulled into a snarl, but it’s not directed at him. He’s never seen _that_ before either.

When he turns his head towards the source of the commotion, the first thing he sees is Hinami’s back. She’s standing directly in front of them, arms spread out wide and blocking them from Nishiki’s reach. She’s shouting at him to leave Hide alone. 

Nishiki himself is being held back by Yomo, who is restraining both his arms behind his back with little effort as Nishiki kicks and curses, his shining blue kagune flailing wildly. His eyes are like Touka’s, and Hide is surprised he can still read the fear in them.

Lots of people are yelling at once. Koma is trying to gently pry Roma off of his side where she is clutching desperately and wailing in fear. Irimi is watching Hide, eyes narrow and body tense, but unmoving.

“ _Enough.”_ Yoshimura’s voice cuts through the chaos like a knife, and everyone freezes.

He continues, “Nishiki, when Yomo releases you, you will _not_ harm Hide. You _will_ let him speak and listen to what he has to say.”

_“But he’s-”_

“You will _not harm him_. Need I remind you why you’re standing here in the first place, Nishiki?” His voice is low and uncompromising.

Hide sees the moment Nishiki visibly pales. His eyes flicker to the back door leading to the upper level, where he knows Kaneki is at this very moment. Hide bites back a bitter smile.

“Okay, okay, _fine_ . Let the walking _liability_ have the fucking floor. Whatever,” He relents, sneering directly at Hide. Yomo releases him, but he doesn’t stop trying to commit murder with his eyes.

Then, it’s silent, and everyone is once again looking at Hide. Touka tightens her grip on his arm, minutely, and his fear is pushed back by resolve.

“I want to help you guys. Anteiku, I mean. I work… I work as a mail carrier at the CCG-” He ignores Nishiki’s growl, “-and I have access to some information. General movements of the Doves, case files on Aogiri, stuff like that. I can be your information source, maybe even help keep the CCG off Anteiku’s back,” He says, and pauses to assess reactions.

It’s Irimi who speaks next, surprising everyone. “How do we know we can trust you?” Her tone seems neutral, as opposed to accusing, so Hide counts that as a win.

He’s deliberating his word choice when Hinami answers for him.

“We can trust him because he’s- he’s… _Hide_. He’s Kaneki’s friend, and he’s our friend, too… Right?” She punctuates her question by facing Hide and slowly reaching out, offering her hand to him, palm up.

Hide looks into her big, hopeful eyes, and she smiles, small and tentative. His throat closes up without his permission. He slowly raises the arm not being held by Touka and takes her hand in his. It’s _so much smaller_ than his, the breath leaves his lungs.

“Oh come _on_ ,” Nishiki sneers.

From beside him, Touka announces, “I trust him.”

Nishiki points an accusatory finger at her. “You _knew_ . You knew all this time but you didn’t say a damn thing because of _course_ you’d trust your _boyfr-”_

“Finish that sentence, _Nishiki_. Go ahead and see what _happens_ ,” Touka interrupts, and Hide feels the temperature of the room drop by a few degrees at _least_.

There’s silence as they stare each other down.

“Good enough for me,” Koma interjects, either oblivious to the tension in the room or just uncaring. “In my youth-” Irimi lets out an exasperated sigh, “-I may have been the wild Devil Ape, not trusting anyone or anything, but I’ve learned since then to make allies where I can. I say we give Hide a _shot_ ,” He says, and gives Hide exaggerated finger guns. Irimi sighs louder.

“Yeah, we all know Hide,” Roma squeaks from where she’s peeking from behind the counter, “He’s practically been part of the crew for a while already!”

Both Roma and Koma look to Irimi next, and she sighs a third time and rubs at her temples.

“I always figured you were too smart for your own good, kid,” Irimi says, “But now I know I was wrong. No human with any amount of smarts would want to involve themselves in this.” She drops her hand and looks into Hide’s eyes. “I guess I’m stupid, too, for trusting you to know what you’re doing.”

Hide smiles at her, and it’s nervous, but genuine. She smiles back.

“Oh, come the _fuck on_ ,” Nishiki yells, but Hide can tell some of his anger is rapidly being replaced by desperation as he loses ground. “Is _everybody_ deciding to jump off this fucking _cliff?_ ”

“Yes,” Yomo replies, deadpan. 

“It seems we are all in agreement, then,” Yoshimura announces.

“ _Hello!?_ I’m fucking _not_ ,” Nishiki screeches. “You are _all_ going to die horribly!”

“I think you mean _we_ are all going to die horribly, Nishi-bear,” Irimi cooes. Nishiki yells and tears at his hair, spewing insults at random. Everyone just observes his ranting with varying levels of amusement.

Hide would laugh his ass off if he wasn’t so emotionally exhausted. As he is, he’s able to huff out a chuckle. 

It comes out more watery than he intended.

Hinami laughs along and swings their linked hands ever so slightly. Touka slides her hand down the length of his arm and finds his other hand, and when Hide looks up at her in surprise, she’s looking at the door to the second floor. There’s a far away look in her eyes. 

Ah. Right. There’s a much harder conversation ahead of him, hopefully sometime soon.

Hide waits for the all-too familiar ache of Kaneki’s absence to envelop him, like it always does if he stops to think about it. And it does--- but it’s _different_ , this time. There’s sadness there, like always, but it’s also so much less _hopeless_ than it used to feel. 

He has allies and a plan and two people he cares about holding each of his hands and actual _hope_ for the future.

He’s good at being patient. He can wait a little longer, if he has to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yoshimura, talking to Kaneki: I diagnose you with Protagonist
> 
> ...Also if Touka hadn't interrupted Nishiki, he would've said, "Of course you'd trust your boyfriend's boyfriend."


	4. Touka: It's Progress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to balance the pacing of Kaneki's recovery at least somewhat realistically is hard. Bare with me.
> 
> Also Kaneki is a language and literature nerd haha what a loser.
> 
> Also also Touka has bad self esteem. I don't make the rules

On the days she doesn’t have work or school, Touka gathers her study materials and pads silently into Kaneki’s room. 

In the first week that he’s back, she doesn’t dare try to speak to him, or acknowledge him in any way. She just sits at his table and studies as he mumbles to himself and stares through her (if he looks towards her at all). 

Even then, she likes to think that having company helps him stay rooted to the present. There are times, increasing in frequency the longer she’s there, when it seems like he’s _seeing_ her. _Really_ seeing her.

One day, two weeks since he’s back, she’s struggling her way through an English essay question. Kaneki is in the chair across from her, half-lidded eyes following her pen.

“It’s effect,” He whispers, and she starts so violently she almost falls out of her chair.

She composes herself and clears her throat before answering eloquently, “Wh- huh?”

“The word you want to use there is _effect_ , not _affect_. Affect is a verb. Effect is a noun,” he tells her, with all the seriousness of a eulogy.

She’s dumbstruck. She doesn’t know what she did to bring him out of his own mind, and she doesn’t know what she needs to do to keep him there. 

She wishes, desperately, and not for the first time, that she was better with people, like Hide. Hide would know what to say to him, in this situation, to make him feel comfortable enough to come a little further out of his shell. She’s seen the effect he has on people. She’s _felt_ the effect he has on people.

But she’s just Touka, and she can’t solve a problem she can’t punch.

She stutters out, “Ah- thanks,” and erases the last line of her writing. He doesn’t respond.

They sit in silence.

Touka, desperate not to lose his attention, blurts out, “How do you spell ‘opposition?’”

He tells her, and his voice is gentle.

In all of her study sessions following, she makes sure to ask him dumb questions that she usually already knows the answer to, and he usually responds with the answer.

\---

It’s different now.

It’s almost a month after his rescue, and he’s speaking more and more as the days go by. Their study sessions are more like full conversations than a Q&A. He explains concepts to almost _enthusiastically_ , providing examples and even praising her for getting things right. 

It doesn’t hurt that He’s a damn good teacher. Her English and literature grades have never been higher. Yoriko takes notice, and teases her about receiving secret tutoring from a handsome boy.

(Technically, she’s not wrong, but she still doesn’t appreciate the implication.)

Sometimes, they move to the common room for a change of scenery. Hinami joins them often, asking both him and Touka about the things they learn at school. 

Kaneki’s eyes are so _warm_ , just like they used to be. She’s even seen him _smile_ a few times.

But, there’s always subtle reminders that he’s different now. The dark bags under his eyes, his tight expression when Hinami brushes his arm, the way he sometimes trails off mid-sentence and stares into nothing before coming back to himself. 

But he almost _always_ comes back to himself, these days.

That’s not to say that he doesn’t have bad days… They’re just not as often as they used to be.

On the bad days, the days when he locks himself in his room, everyone takes turns checking on him and bringing him food and water during the day. At night, they make sure at least one person is free to come running to his room and shake him awake if he starts screaming.

It’s after one of these instances, one night, that he finally opens up to her. 

She thinks she stopped the nightmare early, tonight. He only let out a strangled yell before she heard him and ran into his room. 

They’re sitting on his bed, and he’s absent-mindedly sipping water from a glass she just pushed into his hand. The only light is from the dim street lamps outside. His window is cracked, letting the cold winter air dry some of the sweat plastering his pale hair to his neck and forehead. He’s staring at the wall. 

“You should be sleeping right now,” He murmurs.

“I tried. Couldn’t,” She replies, truthfully. “S’alright.”

He throws his head back and cackles bitterly, and it startles her.

“It’s not alright.” His voice is emotionless, as if the outburst a few seconds earlier had never happened. “I’m not supposed to be… Like this anymore.”

She’s scared for where this is heading, but she asks anyway. “Like what?”

“Weak. Pathetic. Hiding behind other people and watching them get hurt in my place.”

She bites back her anger. He doesn’t need her anger right now.

“You’re not hiding. You need rest. You’re recovering, Kaneki.”

“And look how well that’s going,” He says, monotone. He begins to run his thumb over the pointer finger of the same hand, preparing to press down and crack the joint.

Fiery determination runs through her, and she grabs his hand in hers.

“You _are_ . You can talk to people again. Hinami even makes you smile sometimes. You only have to get Yomo’s help to sleep once every few days now, and he tells me you are starting to keep your senses while fighting him,” She lists, and prays that _any_ of it is getting through. He doesn’t look at her, but instead stares at their clasped hands. She blushes, but does not let go.

“If you don’t believe me, look in a mirror sometime. Your hair is coming in black at the roots,” She adds.

He huffs at this. Not quite a laugh, but she’ll take it.

She continues, “You don’t need to be strong for anyone right now. Let your friends help you, because believe me, they _want_ to, and let _yourself_ be helped.”

He looks her in the eyes for the first time that night, and he just looks… Lost. His eyes shine wetly in the low light. “That’s the problem. I don’t know… If I know how to _do_ that, Touka,” He says, voice breaking, and her heart _aches_ for him. 

She gives into her impulse and reaches her arms around him. 

He stiffens, at first. But then, she feels his arms move, slowly, to embrace her. 

His face falls into her shoulder the same time his tears finally fall. 

He cries, she knows he does, because she can feel the tears wetting her shirt, and she can feel his shuddering sobs. But, If it weren’t for that, she wouldn’t be able to tell because of how unnaturally _quiet_ he is through the whole process. 

Even now, he can’t bring himself to fall apart fully. 

Her heart breaks, and she starts sobbing loud enough for both of them.

After the tears abate and their sobs turn into deep, shuddering breaths, Touka begs into his shoulder, “Promise you’ll _try_ to let me- us- help you. Maybe- maybe talk to someone about it. _Anyone_.”

“I… Okay,” He sighs quietly, and Touka’s heart breaks a little more at just how _exhausted_ he sounds, but it’s progress.

\---

Touka thinks it’s time. 

She doesn’t think that Kaneki will never be _ready_ , not really, and Hide is refusing to push forward in fear of losing him for good, so it’s up to _her_ to make the executive decision. 

She’s reasonably sure that Kaneki has reached a point where he won’t just jump out a window and run the second he sees Hide, and that’s good enough for her.

With how often Hide’s at Anteiku after hours, they’re bound to accidentally run into each other one of these days anyway.

Besides, Hide’s waited long enough. 

It’s time.


	5. Kaneki: Reunion and Acceptance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: A GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF A PANIC ATTACK IS PRESENT IN THIS CHAPTER, AS WELL AS A GENERAL EMOTIONAL BREAKDOWN.
> 
> Ooookaaay this is by far the hardest thing I've written in a long time, I had several times where I cut out huge chunks of dialogue because it wasn't heading where I wanted it to go. By the way, I wrote the majority of the reunion scene in a single 5+ hour sitting instead of doing my homework and the words are starting to blur together so I'm sorry if there are mistakes.
> 
> Writing an unreliable narrator is hard, and Kaneki is as unreliable as it gets when it comes to Big Feelings Time.
> 
> Additional Notes:  
> -Kaneki's dramatic worldview shift (the one about the strong being allowed to survive and the weak deserving to be trampled, or the kindness = weakness, or whatever, I don't remember the specifics) after his torture at the hands of Jason didn't completely stick because that's a stupid worldview and It's my canon now  
> -Kaneki is wrong when he says he was only pretending to recover, he really IS making progress. Again, unreliable narrator.  
> -Yes, I keep hinting at an OT3... More on that later.

When he awakes, it's never soft. It's never slow.

Usually it's a jolt, and he thrashes upright, the question of  _ where where where _ pounding through his veins until he stops and calms enough to see the absence of black and white tile, to feel the freedom of his movement, to smell the savory afterthought of coffee in the air, and sometimes, to hear voices- soft and familiar- outside the dark monolith of his panic, and realize he's not  _ there _ anymore.

Today, like a few other rare days recently, he comes to consciousness abruptly, but not violently; one second his mind is absent, and the next second it is not.

His first observation is the fog that swirls in his mind and behind his eyes is clearer, today. He feels focused.

Touka would say that's a good thing. Yoshimura would say it's a sign of progress. He's not so certain.

Kaneki has learned from experience that the clearer his thoughts, the more guilt curls throughout his body, molten and heavy, and the more he’s  _ unbearably _ restless.

He should be  _ out _ . Protecting them. Destroying their enemies. Tearing apart all who would dare harm them. Ripping through body after body, securing for them a safe future built on rivers of blood and heaps of flesh and castles of bone.

The urge  _ itches _ .

It's a feeling not dissimilar to the terrible, inescapable  _ wrongness,  _ the  _ crawling burning screaming screaming screaming centipedes inside his- eating his- _

Well. Not nearly as bad, obviously, but not  _ dissimilar _ .

Kaneki picks himself up out of bed despite the grey darkness of pre dawn. He goes through his morning routine mechanically, unthinkingly. 

Take a shower. Cold, because warm feels too much like the slow slide of blood in the darkness behind his eyelids.

Brush his teeth. Twice, because just once never erases the memory of the taste of  _ his _ flesh, the grit of it coating his mouth as he rips his jaw open wider to consume more of the rancid substance.

Get dressed. Dark colors, because he wants to be as a shadow in the minds of these people, unobtrusive as possible as to not drag them down with him.

He stops in front of the mirror and calls his consciousness to rapt attention to make sure he looks presentable enough to go out. Not for his sake, but theirs.

Touka’s right. His hair is coming in black at the roots. 

The sight of that digs up an old emotion in him- something adjacent to hope, but not as naive. He resolves to let Touka know he’s having a ‘good’ day today, regardless.

He puts on his eyepatch. He doesn’t need it anymore, not since he  ~~ buckled under the suffocation of the monstrous hunger ~~ agreed to eat with the others on behalf of Yoshimura’s urging, but there’s comfort in the familiarity. 

He just has to remind himself, profusely, that he’s not weak or foolish for seeking that comfort. 

He doesn’t believe it, not yet, but maybe he will one day.

He waits until 5:46 a.m. to exit his room, because 545 is 65th in the sequence of counting down by 7 from 1000, and he’s trying very hard not to associate any part of himself with that sequence anymore.

There’s no one in the hallway, blessedly. It’s too small and anyone passing by him has to come closer to touching him than he would like.

He makes it into the café and sits at the counter. Yoshimura is on the other side, already in the process of opening up for the day. When he arrives, he smiles, and Kaneki instantly feels undeserving of the warmth present in the expression, and the ease at which it’s directed at someone like him.

“Good morning, Kaneki. Did you sleep well?”

“Well enough,” He replies, truthfully.  _ Always _ truthfully. He promised Touka he would let them help, and for that, they need his honesty.

“That’s good to hear,” Yoshimura says, “I’ll have your coffee ready in just a minute.”

Kaneki sits and observes him through the process of preparing the coffee with fluid motions that are no less loving for their efficiency. 

When it’s finished, he sets the white porcelain down in front of him. “There you are,” He says, and he’s smiling again. The lines of his face bend to it easily, naturally.

Kaneki smothers the black guilt crawling up his throat. “Thank you,” He says, instead of ‘ _ I’m sorry I do this every morning. I’m sorry I’m so pathetic you feel as though you must treat me like a child. I’m sorry I enjoy it.’ _

It tastes as wonderful as usual, and it quiets his mind like a heavy velvet blanket quiets a sputtering fire.

Touka walks in from the back door, and he meets her eyes in greeting. She’s wearing her waitress uniform. She’s working today, then. He knows she wouldn’t be awake on a saturday otherwise. 

He recalls when she was disturbed from her sleep on her day off, once. The image of her hair (matted and sticking up) and her pajamas (a soft peach color with a rabbit pattern) juxtaposed with her (righteously bloodthirsty) expression has yet to leave his memory. 

Even now, the thought of it warms him more thoroughly than coffee ever will. 

Then, the cloying guilt crawls back up his stomach and sits in his throat when he remembers that he’s undeserving of  _ her _ warmth, most of all.

She interrupts his thoughts by addressing him.

“Hey, Kaneki, I have an English paper I need to do after work today,” She states, and he knows it’s her version of asking him for help.

“Okay,” He says, and- because he wants her to know he feels ‘better’ today- he smiles. 

It’s not even entirely false.

She stares at him, wide eyed, for a full few seconds, though he’s not sure why.

Even more inexplicably, he swears he can see a featherlight dusting of pink blush coloring her cheeks.

“...Touka?” He calls her, hesitant. 

She blinks, rapidly turns, and marches away, presumably to help Yoshimura finish opening procedures.

Kaneki is left wondering what he did wrong.

\---

After the business day has closed, and the sun has long since melted into the winter-grey horizon, He sits himself in the common room upstairs and waits for Touka.

Hinami sits at his side on the sofa, reading a book about insects. Her brow is folded in concentration and her lips move silently to mouth the words on the page. He has a book of his own spread in his lap, some pleasantly benign poetry, but the words on the page melt together into incomprehensible swirls the longer he looks. 

He is more content to watch her, and bask in the feeling of being… Not alone.

(The guilt associated with the indulgence is still there, in the background, but he’s getting better at ignoring it.)

Touka walks in, arms full of notebooks, and unceremoniously dumps them on the coffee table. She straightens and blows the hair out of her face with a puff of air. Then, her eyes land on Hinami, and she seems to falter.

“Okay. Uh… Right. I still need to get, um… Some more books. Hey Hinami, want to help me carry them in here from my room?” She asks.

Hinami makes a sound of agreement and sets her book aside, following Touka out of the room. 

Kaneki thinks nothing of it, and waits patiently for them to come back, idly skimming the poetry in his lap.

It takes longer than he expected before the door opens again, and Touka walks in.

She’s not carrying any books, and behind her is- 

_ Behind her is- _

_ …  _

_ Oh God. _

  
  


Time crawls to a stop around him as his brain crashes- hard and fast- into numb disbelief. 

He’s hallucinating. He has to be. His brain is  _ always _ lingering on past hurts- this is no different.

Then Hide takes a single step forward, and the spell is instantly broken. This is  _ real _ .  _ He’s _ real. Kaneki shoots to his feet. Ice cold panic pours into his stomach and his mind and his  _ lungs- _

Hide stops just inside the doorway, entirely different and yet the exact same as he remembers him, and stares at him-  _ into him-  _ And Kaneki, whose body is screaming at him to act, to do something- to say something,  _ anything _ \- is being pinned by that stare like an insect on a board. Just like the insects in Hinami’s book, he is being meticulously  _ dissected _ . 

Hide is here, looking at him like he has never seen him before, saying absolutely nothing, and all he can do is stand there and  _ take it. _

What else can he do? He  _ knows _ what Hide is seeing- his  _ supposed _ best friend since childhood, missing for a month and a half, miraculously before him, hair bleached like a ghost’s visage, nails blackened and cracked- 

Irrevocably changed, for the worse, from something he has  _ no _ knowledge of-

Unless he does.

_ Unless he does. _

And that single thought turns the ice in his lungs to  _ molten lead _ . 

He  _ knows _ . He  _ has _ to know. How did Kaneki  _ ever _ think he could conceal who-  _ what _ \- he is from  _ Hide!? Hide-  _ the single most observant person Kaneki has ever met! Of  _ course _ he knows. It’s so magnificently, laughably  _ naive _ of him to have ever expected Hide  _ not _ to find out. To think he could just push him away and expect him not to come looking for answers.

All of the sudden, his body is forcing out laughter, choked and maniacal, without his mind’s permission. It sounds deranged, even to his own ears. He doubles over, heaving for precious air, and Hide steps forward, and Touka is reaching for him-

He nearly trips over in his haste to step back, to get  _ away _ .

“DON’T-” He chokes out, and can’t inhale on his next breath because of the  _ hurt _ in Touka’s expression- he hurt her,  _ he hurt her- _

And that’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? The way he  _ always _ hurts the ones he loves, sooner or later, because he’s not strong enough, not independent enough- just not  _ enough _ for this world, this world that takes and takes and  _ takes _ until there’s nothing good left- just pieces of a whole- and he thought that, maybe, if he kept his distance, if he never confronted him, he’d be able to keep just a  _ piece _ of Hide- but that was so  _ stupid _ of him, because now he’s going to lose  _ all _ of him, right here, right now, because Hide is rightfully disgusted by him- by what he  _ is _ , by what he’s  _ done _ , by the horrifying, pathetic display he’s putting on _ right now- _

And he hates himself now more than he’s  _ ever _ done, because his life has  _ always _ been a tragedy unfolding in slow motion from the day he was born- and he can never just drown  _ himself _ in it,  _ no _ , he has to make sure he drags  _ others _ into the thick, bloody waters with him, just so he can stay afloat a few minutes longer- just so it can be  _ bearable _ for a few seconds more- as his lungs are bursting with it and it’s spilling out past his lips, pitch-black and viscous and  _ wrong- _

“HEY, hey, Kaneki- stop  _ thinking _ , just  _ breathe _ , buddy. Breathe in. Breathe out. Can you do that for me?” Hide’s voice cuts through the static in his ears, and despite himself he clings to it like a drowning man clings to a rescuer, and it stops the spiral of his thoughts for a moment- but Kaneki wants to yell at him, tell him to get  _ away _ \- because he’ll drag them both under the waves in his desperation, make them  _ both _ sink.

“Kaneki! You can do this, okay? It _will_ pass, you just have to breathe. You’ll make it, _I_ _promise you_.” He hears Touka pleading, distantly, but there’s always been so much _certainty_ in her voice, he believes her without question, trusts her without hesitation- so he _tries_. For _both_ of them, he _tries_.

He stops and pulls as much air as he can into his lungs, and out- and in again- and repeats the process, going deeper each time. It gets easier, and eventually everything within him slows.

He hears Hide talking to him through it all- soft, meaningless words of encouragement and affirmation. The black edges of his vision recede enough for Kaneki to see his surroundings.

Kaneki dimly realizes he’s on the floor, back against the wall. Hide is crouched in front of him, much closer than he was a few seconds ago. For some reason, the proximity fails to make him panic. 

Hide’s face is pinched in worry. When Kaneki meets his eyes, his teeth flash into a  _ smile _ . It’s nervous, but it’s  _ so _ achingly reminiscent of better times. 

He never realized until now just  _ how much _ that smile was missed. The sight of it feels like he’s seeing color again after the world has been nothing but monochrome for months.

“Soooooooo,” Hide begins, dragging out the word, “I think we need to talk. When you’re ready.”

And Kaneki is still afraid, but more than that, he’s _tired._ Tired of running, tired of lying, and tired of the _ache_ in his heart that Hide used to fill. He closes his eyes and nods. Hide springs to his feet, then offers him a hand. Kaneki hesitates, but carefully accepts the help up.

They walk to the couch and sit, but Touka remains standing. She shifts on her feet nervously and mumbles something about privacy under her breath before turning to leave.

Hide leans forward and grabs her by the hand. Kaneki freezes, expecting her to retaliate violently and fearing for Hide’s wellbeing. Instead, she stops and simply looks back at him in confusion.

“Stay. Please. You’re part of this discussion, too,” Hide pleads, then shoots a glance at Kaneki and hurriedly adds, “Or, I’d like you to be, if it’s okay with Kaneki.”

After a moment of thought, Kaneki nods his assent. He wants her here as well, he just never knew Hide and Touka were on friendly terms like they appear to be now. He wonders when that happened. He’s too afraid to ask.

Touka looks between the two of them with uncertainty. Hide smiles at her, and something in her eyes shifts. Kaneki realizes with faint alarm that she looks as though she’s about to cry. In spite of this, the corners of her mouth twitch upward and she sits in the plush chair adjacent to the couch.

It’s silent for a moment.

Then Hide begins, “I just want to say, before anything else, that I’m- that it doesn’t matter to me. What you are, Kaneki. What you both are. I don’t care. Well, I do care, in the fact that it makes life unfairly hard for you both, but- what I’m saying is-” He cuts himself off with a sound of frustration, and looks at Kaneki. “You’re still my best friend. Being a ghoul won’t change that.”

“I…” He wants to argue. He wants to dig up the old argument he had practiced in his head- to insist that Hide doesn’t know what he’s done, what he’ll have to do in the future- what it means to stay by his side- but the words seem so  _ weak _ to him, now. 

Hide already  _ knows _ , and he’s still here.

He tries anyway.

“Surviving as a ghoul means killing people, Hide. There’s no way around it,” He says, and even though he knows there’s likely nothing he can say to make him  _ see _ , he has to  _ try _ .

“I know that,” Hide says, voice firm, “And I don’t care.”

Kaneki curls his fists in frustration. “How could you  _ not _ care?”

“Because, there’s a huge difference between going around and offing innocent people for fun and what Anteiku does. You guys feed off of suicide corpses- and maybe the occasional sex offender, no big loss to society there- and protect yourselves from external threats. That’s it,” Hide states, alarmingly nonchalant. 

“It’s not that simple,” Kaneki replies, devoid of any inflection. “Not everyone who threatens Anteiku’s safety deserves to die, but we’ll-  _ I’ll _ kill them anyway. You don’t want to be involved in that, Hide. I’m not…  _ Good _ anymore.”

Hide sighs and begins, “Kaneki-”

“Tell me, Kaneki,” Touka interrupts, voice low, “Do you think I’m a bad person? Or that anyone in Anteiku is a bad person?

Kaneki knows where her argument is going. He knows that she’s trapping him into a corner, but he can’t answer ‘yes.’ He thinks of Yoshimura, and Hinami, and Yomo and all of the others- his friends, who care about him, who care about each other- and then of Touka herself: breathtaking, loving in her own way, and so,  _ so _ strong- and he knows there’s  _ no way _ he can answer dishonestly.

“No,” He answers, carefully calm.

“Well, that’s funny, because I could’ve  _ sworn _ that  _ I _ have a body count behind me a mile long; not to mention what Yoshimura’s looks like,” She bites back aggressively. “Even if  _ every _ kill was done out of survival, there are bound to be plenty of debatably ‘innocent’ people in there somewhere, and yet you still say that we’re not  _ ‘bad. _ ’ Why are  _ you _ \- a person with no body count at  _ all _ \- so different?”

Maybe it’s been building up for far too long, or maybe it’s because he doesn’t have the energy left to keep it in, but Kaneki  _ snaps _ . His voice becomes hard, dripping with anger and desperation in equal measures.

“You’re  _ wrong _ . I  _ do _ have a body count, and it makes me a bad person because  _ none _ of them were done out of survival. They happened because people trusted me,  _ relied _ on me, and I was too stupid, too slow, or too  _ fucking weak _ to stop it. 

My mother worked herself to  _ death _ because she needed to provide for  _ me _ before  _ herself _ when her sister took her money. Mrs. Fueguchi died  _ right in front of me _ and all I could do-  _ all I could do _ was cover the eyes of her screaming daughter so she wouldn’t have to  _ watch _ as her mother got executed in an alley like a rabid  _ animal _ . The Dove who killed her died because I didn’t stop Touka from getting revenge- and that’s because part of me didn’t even  _ want _ to stop her.”

He pauses, and Hide starts to say something, but he continues, the words pouring from his mouth in a torrent he can’t seem to stem. 

“That’s not even  _ counting _ the times that people have been injured because of  _ me _ \- almost  _ died _ , because of  _ me _ \- had to fight for their lives, because of  _ me _ . You both fall  _ directly _ into that category- as does Nishiki, Kimi, Banjou and his gang-  _ all of Anteiku _ .

He laughs hysterically, and they both flinch.

“And the _best_ one- the best one is Ja-Jason,” He stumbles over the name, and it infuriates him how pathetic it is, that he still can’t even utter it aloud, “I killed him- I ripped him apart- and he deserved it, yes, _oh_ _God,_ he _deserved it_ \- but I did it because I _wanted_ to, and because I _enjoyed_ seeing him crying and begging just like he made _me_ cry and beg- and I have never had _anything_ make me feel as good as I felt when he realized I was _eating him alive_.”

It’s silent.

He pointedly  _ doesn’t _ look at their reactions, because as horrified as they probably are, all he feels is a cold, empty sense of finality.

He’s said it, it’s done, and with any luck, he’s just lost the two best friends he’s ever had, and he can never hurt them again.

This is what he wanted, isn’t it? This was his plan A, before he took Touka’s hand that night and allowed himself to be led back to the closest thing he’s ever felt to  _ home _ since his mom died.

Before he allowed himself to be fooled into thinking that he could come back from the dark. 

He’s been playing pretend, acting like he’s going to recover for a month and a half now. He should be relieved he doesn’t have to lie anymore.

Why does it have to feel so  _ horrible? _

“Are you done now?” Hide asks condescendingly, and Kaneki shoots him an agonized look.

“Listen,” Hide begins, more softly, “I am so,  _ so _ sorry you went through all that, Kaneki. I’m more sorry than you could ever realize. But you have to know that not being able to stop other people’s actions  _ doesn’t _ make the consequences your fault.”

“You don’t  _ understand _ . I could have-”

“I  _ could have _ stopped your accident with Rize,” Touka interjects, her head hung low and her voice wavering. Hide and Kaneki both freeze at the level of emotion she’s displaying. 

She swallows and slowly elaborates, “I knew what she was.  _ Who _ she was. I knew she was just playing with her food when she pretended to be interested in you. I- I even saw her leading you down that dark street, and I knew she was going to kill you,” She says, and her voice cracks. “But I didn’t. Do.  _ Anything _ . Because I didn’t care about you, and I didn’t want to get involved.” 

She looks up at him, and Kaneki’s stomach drops when he sees tears stream down her face.

“Does- does that make everything that happened afterwards my fault, Kaneki? Do you blame me?” She warbles.

“No, no- never.” His heart flashes in agony at the mere possibility that she thought he did.

“Well that makes you a big fucking hypocrite,” She chokes out, her face contorting in anger despite the tears still spilling from her eyes. “Do you honestly believe that your mom, or Mrs. Fueguchi, or me, or Hide, or anyone else  _ blames _ you?”

He can’t answer. He just  _ can’t _ . The dissonance between what he feels in his heart and what his logic is trying to let him realize is  _ too much _ . He screws his eyes shut and holds his head in his hands, cowering under her wet glare.

But it seems Touka’s not done yet. “I get it. _I get it,_ Kaneki, because I have to wake up _every damn day_ , see how much your life is _fucked,_ and- and try to convince myself that It’s not _my_ _fault_ you ended up like this, because I know you wouldn’t want me blaming myself.” She pauses, and he can hear her sniffing furiously and wiping at her face.

“So don’t you  _ dare _ pussy out and not even  _ try _ to do the same. It’s easy to just sit back and wallow in the lie that you’re the source of everyone’s problems, but the truth is harder,” She finishes.

Kaneki’s hands slowly drop into his lap. His brain loops her words on repeat, trying to get them to stick.

“No one blames you- not for  _ any _ of it,” Hide chimes in gently. “Not even for the shit you did to… Your captor. It was fucked up, don’t get me wrong,” He adds, “But would you blame me for doing the same, If I was in that situation?”

Kaneki shakes his head numbly, because that’s the truth. He wouldn’t. There’s very little that Hide could do that he’d hold against him.

“All that you did to him- and what you felt about it, during- shows that he pushed you  _ well _ past the brink of your rational, sane state of being. Your mind snapped in response and changed it’s preconceived repulsion to violence in order to survive the violence being inflicted on it,” He explains, and Kaneki has to pause and re-process the advanced vernacular being thrown at him so casually. 

“In layman's terms, you were pushed so far you started to  _ like _ the violence because you would’ve completely- and most likely permanently- lost your mind otherwise.” 

Kaneki looks up and stares at him, only barely comprehending. Touka is staring too, bewildered. Hide shrugs. “It’s a trauma response,” He says.

That doesn’t change the fact that he did it, and it was monstrous. He’s about to say so, but Hide seems to anticipate it, and continues.

“What that action  _ doesn’t _ show is whether or not you’re a bad person. But guess what- I know the answer to that anyway: you’re not. You’re  _ not _ , because you regret it  _ so much _ you’re disgusted with yourself, despite the fact that he  _ inarguably _ deserved it.”

“I…” He starts, but his thoughts are so jumbled, he can’t make sense of them.

Touka interrupts, “Kaneki, do you trust us?” Her voice is hoarse from crying. 

He doesn’t have to think before the answer slips from him. “Yes.” 

“Then trust us when we say that you deserve to be helped,” She says. “You promised you’d try, remember? To let us help?”

Hide nods. “Please, Kaneki, don’t overthink this, for once in your life. Rely on others. Rely on  _ us _ , because we’re not going  _ anywhere _ .”

And it’s more than he can take. 

It’s as if he was teetering on the precipice of  _ something _ for a while now, skirting the edge, too terrified of the darkness below to commit, to jump; and he just  _ now _ received the final push he needed to let himself fall.

All of Kaneki’s thoughts collapse upon themselves, and, despite  _ everything _ , a sense of exhausted relief- stronger than he’s ever felt- washes through him like a cleansing wave.

His eyes fill and spill over in the span of a second, and he ducks his head and just starts  _ crying _ .

It’s loud and it’s ugly and it’s messy and he can’t  _ stop _ . Doesn’t even  _ want _ to stop, because it feels like the most normal, human thing he’s done since he escaped literal Hell on Earth.

He feels Hide’s arms encircle his shoulders, and Touka grabs his hand. The weight of it grounds him. He won’t be washed away.

So he cries freely, and it feels like an eternity before the sobs subside, but they do so eventually. 

His whole body aches, his head is pounding, and he is left raw and exposed, like new skin. The air feels thick like molasses, and he’s exhausted so  _ deeply _ . Down to his very core.

He pulls his head up from where it rests on the center of Hide’s chest. 

He and Touka are staring at him- in fondness, in relief- he doesn’t know, but his first instinct is to start spewing apologies. He forcibly tamps down the urge.

Hide solves the stalemate, as usual.

“Heya, you back with us?” He says casually, teasing, and grins- wide and blinding- as if nothing had just happened. 

He grins as if no time has passed at all, and it’s still them against the world.

If Kaneki had the tears or the energy, he would start crying all over again, because he knows it’s Hide’s way of saying they’ll be okay. 

They just have to work towards it.


	6. Hide: CCG Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we expand the character list. I'm not gonna lie, this fic is the most ambitious writing project I've ever planned. Let's see If I can tough it out.
> 
> I am using the English order of names, where the character's family name appears second. I have edited past chapters to keep this consistent.
> 
> Additional notes:   
> -Hide is NOT Amon's assistant, just a mail carrier/ intern for the CCG headquarters   
> -Amon does NOT know that Hide knows Kaneki  
> -The CCG has NOT caught Dr. Kanou and does NOT know about Kaneki's life-altering surgery, nor any of his other projects

Hide’s official thoughts on Koutarou Amon, is that he- unfortunately- has a terminal case of Hero Complex.

It’s a disease he happens to have a  _ lot _ of experience witnessing the symptoms of. He’d say that he’s practically a verifiable expert on it, at this point.

Hide first met him when he was receiving his orientation tour at the CCG headquarters. Amon was polite, almost suffocatingly so, but friendly and enthusiastic in a big brother kinda way, too. When his supervisor introduced them, Amon had bowed to him and announced, “I’m pleased that you will be aiding the CCG. Even if you aren’t an investigator, your work is still integral to this organization. I look forward to working with you, Hideyoshi Nagachika.”

Hide remembered having to smile  _ so _ wide in response, and thinking to himself that this guy was going to be  _ exhausting _ to be around for long periods of time, unless he miraculously grew a sense of humor one day.

(He never did.)

In the days following, the Hero Complex became increasingly more obvious. Hide had to feign wide-eyed interest in Amon’s work and ask him all kinds of admiring questions in order to establish his cover as the starry-eyed intern, and Amon had always responded with the most  _ achingly _ righteous answers possible.

_ “Hey, so I was wondering,” Hide starts casually, leaning onto Amon’s desk in what he calculates to be a friendly, familiar way, “Why’d you become an investigator in the first place? It sounds like a pretty dangerous profession to be in. Why not choose something less… Life threatening?” _

_ Amon doesn’t look up from the paperwork he’s doing, and his response is automatic. “I won’t pretend the work is easy, but someone has to protect the people from ghouls, and if I’m willing and able to change the world for better, I have an obligation to do so,” He says, and the sad part is Hide can tell he means it. _

_ “Oh man, you’re really brave, Amon. I don’t think I’d be able to do it,” Hide gushes back, and is immensely thankful for the fact that Amon doesn’t pick up on the hint of bitter sarcasm in his voice. _

Someone with a sense of justice  _ that _ strong who is also currently employed by a government run genocide program is either a complete psychopath (like most other high ranking CCG officers), or a  _ huge _ dumbass.

Hide knows now, two months after the Aogiri raid (and almost three months at his job total), that it’s the second option. 

Amon genuinely believes, out of ignorance, that ghouls are the scourge of the earth and that the CCG is justified in wiping them from existence. Akira and Seidou latch on to his sense of moral superiority, and they all feed into each other’s twisted drive to see the race exterminated.

Hide almost hates them for how simple they make it seem.

Key word being  _ almost _ , because he knows it’s not their fault, really. They grew up hearing the word  _ ghoul _ be synonymous with  _ monster _ , with  _ murder _ , with  _ evil,  _ just like he did- and unlike him, they have had no reason to rethink that. In fact, all their experiences have only reinforced their view. 

Hide hears things, at his job. He goes out of his way to make  _ sure _ he does.

It’s common knowledge that Akira’s father was just recently killed in action. She’s always being compared to his- frankly staggering- legacy of ghoul corpses he had left behind. It’s also widely known that her mother was killed in action as well, by the one eyed owl, many years back. They’re both hailed as heroes.

There’s also information about Amon’s past floating around, if you snoop into the paperwork far enough like Hide’s done- the fact he’s an orphan, the fact that he was involved in a huge CCG investigation when he was just a kid, the fact he’s made irregular visits to Cochlea in the past- they all point to a tragic backstory involving ghouls. 

As for Seidou- well, Hide quickly learned that he’s just plain naive. His cubicle is covered in newspaper clippings of high ranking CCG officers’ triumphs. He fawns over Arima and follows everything Amon says to the letter. A true fanboy at heart, living out his fantasy of following after his heroes and saving the world. He’s blinded by his romanticism of the profession, and Amon’s steady charisma.

So it’s no mystery why they view ghouls the way they do. Hide doesn’t have to like it, he joined in order to find information about Kaneki’s whereabouts while he was missing, and now he’s there as a straight up double agent for Anteiku.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t bother him, though. 

Because, despite himself, he  _ likes _ them. He’s spent too many lunch breaks pulling up a chair and sharing Seidou’s desk, swapping playfully antagonistic banter with Akira, and listening to Amon give heartfelt encouragement to  _ not _ like them.

So, when Amon slips up and expresses doubt one day, Hide’s left reeling with the potential opening he has. 

\---

It starts raining outside as he bikes to work. Hide increases his speed, because he’s  _ almost _ there and he doesn’t want to be soaked by the time he enters the building. He’s pissed off the janitor once already for dripping on the floors in the past.

By the time he chains up his bike and is frantically digging through his bag for his door pass, the rain is battering down, plastering his hair to his face.

Suddenly, the rain ceases. Hide looks up, confused. To his surprise, Mr. Shinohara stands next to him, holding a large black umbrella over him and smiling kindly.

(He’s spoken to Mr. Shinohara before, in the course of his workday. He’s always been nothing but kind and fatherly, giving Hide seriously conflicting feelings, considering his profession. 

Still, if there was a list of CCG investigators worth saving, he’d be on it, right next to Amon, Akira, and Seidou. 

Hide doesn’t know whether to be sad or angry that the list ends there.)

“Ah, Mr. Shinohara, sorry. I must have been blocking the door,” Hide says, ducking his head sheepishly.

“No need to apologize. I’m early, anyway. Juuzou Isn’t expecting me for another half an hour- then again, he’s not the best at waiting, so it might be prudent to arrive early anyway,” He says, then chuckles, good naturedly.

As if Juuzou is a normal unruly child and not a bloodthirsty murder machine that unnerves the  _ hell _ out of Hide.

(And Hide knows he’s maybe being a little overly judgemental, considering he’s a literal  _ child _ who was raised in captivity and taught to murder for entertainment, but  _ fuck _ , he’s creepy, and he knows- through the CCG records- that Juuzou is more than worthy of being called a killer.)

Hide just chuckles in response as Mr. Shinohara swipes his card and the door opens in front of them.

Once inside, they part ways with polite goodbyes. Hide makes his way to his station to pick up his deliveries for the day, and tries very hard not to think about how many undeserving ghouls Mr. Shinohara has killed in the past.

Just a typical day at work, for Hide.

\---

It’s only later in the evening, after most people have already left, that Hide finishes up his tasks and heads to Amon’s section of the office for more information gathering. He’s hoping that the office is empty and Akira may have left some of her paperwork out on her desk again, so Hide can take pictures of it and pour through them at a later time.

When he enters, he finds Amon, sorting through a stack of paper files three feet tall and sitting on the floor.

Alarm bells instantly go off in Hide’s head, because Koutarou ‘Professionalism in the Workplace’ Amon is  _ sitting on the floor. _ His tie is undone. Hide distinctly feels like he’s just walked in on the guy naked.

He looks up in alarm at the sound of his approach. “Ah, Hideyoshi- I didn’t realize- I thought you weren’t in today.” 

“You’re on the floor,” Hide blurts out, stupidly.

“Ah, yes, my apologies. There wasn’t room on my desk.” He seems embarrassed at being caught, and he starts to stand up.

Hide rushes forward and sits on the floor across from him. “No, it’s okay. I get it. Sometimes working on the floor feels better anyway. Desks are overrated,” He says, remembering the long, lonely nights spent on his  _ own  _ floor, piecing together heaps of paper in order to find any hint of Kaneki in the CCG records.

Amon sits back down, self consciously. Up close, Hide gets a better look at him. There are bags under his eyes, but that isn’t a recent development. He’s always had those, as if he was regularly losing sleep over something Hide has yet to determine. What’s new is his hair being disheveled and clothes wrinkled. Hide has never seen him presented as anything less than pristine.

“So, what are you working on this late, anyway? I didn’t even expect anyone to be in here, I was just looking to see if I left my lunchbox on Seidou’s desk again,” Hide lies, easily.

“Reports of ghoul sightings from the last few years,” He answers, and resumes sorting the stack of papers into four different piles as he speaks. “Just yesterday I  _ finally  _ received permission to open a formal investigation into Eyepatch, and I’m trying to find any trace of him through the process of elimination. It’s been… Difficult.”

“...Oh,” Hide says. That would explain it. Amon’s obsession with Eyepatch would be the only thing strong enough to make him act like this. From what Hide observed, every free moment he had outside of his current assignment would be thrown into unraveling the identity of Eyepatch, thanks to the encounter he had with him roughly a month before Hide joined the CCG. 

The night Akira’s father was killed.

Amon had only ever told Seidou the general overview of what happened, and Hide was unwilling to ask Akira or Amon about it, fearing it would look suspicious if he showed too much interest in this particular ghoul. So, for a long time, a general overview is all he had, courtesy of Seidou.

But now, he knows every detail. Kaneki, along with Touka, filled him in completely in the days following Kaneki’s breakdown. They had come completely clean to them about everything- including Kaneki’s tense interaction with Amon that night, and Mado’s death at Touka’s hand. 

(He still refuses to blame them, despite the guilt they  _ both _ feel over it.)

Now that Amon is fully dedicated to the investigation, there’s a possibility, however slight, that he might find something damning. 

“Can I do anything to help?” Hide asks, because he can’t help but involve himself if his friends are on the line, and if something  _ does _ turn up, he can warn them. He’s here to be their front line of defense, after all.

Amon looks taken back, like he didn’t expect the offer. Hide momentarily panics, fearing he overstepped and made himself look suspicious, but Amon’s surprise is quickly replaced by gratitude.

“Ah, I suppose that would make things go by a little more quickly, If you wouldn’t mind. Just take these case files and sort them into whichever category they best fit. This pile is for incidents involving the death of one or more people, this pile is for incidents confirmed to be solved, this pile is for incidents in which the ghoul is confirmed female and still at large, and the last pile is for incidents in which the ghoul is confirmed male and still at large. If there are any sightings of Eyepatch in our system at all, they’ll be in the last category,” He explains.

Hide nods and grabs a sizable chunk of the stack. They work in silence for a long time before Hide opens his mouth to complain.

“Uhg, this is taking forever. How many are there total?”

“For years 2010-2013? Several thousand.”

“Holy  _ shit, _ dude! Don’t we have computers with search filters for a  _ reason? _ Why is it all on  _ paper?”  _ Hide doesn’t even have to fake his surprise.

“Because these are  _ all _ of the sightings, officially confirmed and not. The non-official reports are submitted by citizens and investigated. If no proof of ghoul activity turns up, they are never filed into the electronic database,” Amon explains.

“Wow. So… You’re uh, you’re really digging deep, huh,” Hide says slowly as he sorts another statement.

“Yes. I’ve already poured over our electronic records and found  _ nothing _ fitting his description, so I’ve turned to  _ this,” _ He says, and he sounds exhausted. 

Hide feels genuine sympathy for him, then. He recalls, once again, the blurry, frantic week or so of his life he spent looking for Kaneki, fueled by desperation and caffeine in equal measures.

“Why?” Hide asks.

“Why what?” 

“Why go this far? And don’t say you’re just doing your job. We  _ both _ know this is outside the parameters of work,” He adds, and hopes once again that he isn’t overstepping, but  _ needing _ to hear his true motive.

“I…” Amon puts down the report in his hands and rubs at his eyes in an uncharacteristic show of weakness. “I… I don’t- I…” He continues to struggle over his words. 

Hide waits patiently, because he knows that, sometimes, the best pressure of all is the lack of pressure. It pays off. He pinpoints the  _ exact _ moment Amon’s shoulders slump, and he knows, without a doubt, that Amon had just decided to confide in him the complete truth.

“There’s so many reasons, I can’t pinpoint which one is actually driving me. Because I want revenge. Because I want to give Akira closure. Because It’s my job to protect people. Because… Because I want to  _ know, so very badly, _ how he views the world we live in- how he grew up- what it was like- and how it led to a ghoul not wanting to kill a CCG inspector that would’ve-  _ should’ve _ \- killed him without hesitation.”

After he finishes speaking, Hide is left dazed with the speed of his own thoughts. 

_ This _ is what Amon had been losing sleep over. He had spent the entire time after their encounter questioning his entire view of ghouls, because he recognized the  _ humanity _ present in Kaneki; someone Amon believes was born and raised a ghoul.

He’s on the verge of realizing the truth is a shade of grey when he had been raised his whole life thinking it was black and white.

Hide abruptly realizes has to be  _ so fucking careful, _ here. Anything he says next can’t be too extreme in either direction, if he wants Amon to actually  _ listen.  _ He needs to appear as an ally.

He waits a long time before speaking.

“Do you ever think about what you would do if you were born a ghoul?”

“What?” Amon says, thoroughly confused.

“Like, hypothetically. What would you do?”

Amon doesn’t answer.

“Because I’ve thought about it, and I still don’t know. It only makes sense that ghouls feel the same range of emotions that we do. So you’d still be  _ you, _ right? The only thing that would be different is that you’d have to eat… You know…  _ People _ … To survive. And that in itself is wrong, sure, but… If you wanted to survive, you’d have no choice.”

“There’s  _ always _ a choice. You have to make the  _ decision _ to become a murder, it doesn’t just  _ happen,” _ Amon replies, but the conflicted furrow of his brow doesn’t leave.

“Yeah, but every living thing wants to  _ keep _ living. Would it be wrong to  _ want _ to live, in spite of what that means?”

“I… I don’t know, Hide. I’m not the right person to ask that question,” He replies, slowly. “Why are you asking me this?”

“...It’s just something I think about, sometimes,” Hide answers, deep in thought. “Because I think that there are ghouls out there, like Eyepatch, who don’t  _ want _ to kill people. Maybe even some who have  _ never _ killed people.”

He pauses, and gauges Amon for his reaction. Anguish is evident on his face. Hide decides to back off and not push his luck, for now.

“But I don’t know. Like I said, it’s just a thought,” He shrugs, and picks up the next case file in his stack.

Amon doesn’t say anything, and follows suit. He stays mostly silent for the rest of the night. The turmoil inside him still shows through his eyes, however, and Hide feels a bright spark of vindication in his chest. The seed of doubt that Kaneki had planted inside him is growing, and Hide intends to help it along however he can.

It’s later, when he’s heating up microwave noodles, alone in his crappy apartment, that Hide realizes the  _ true _ implications of this discovery. 

If Kaneki can make Amon, stick-up-his-ass  _ Amon,  _ doubt his entire worldview with one interaction---

He’s been thinking on  _ much _ too small a scale this  _ entire goddamn time.  _

Kaneki has more power than he could ever realize, by just  _ existing. _

Hide spends the rest of the night weaving together the beginnings of a plan bigger than he’s ever thought possible.


	7. Touka: Poetry Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo okay, It's taken a bit longer to get this chapter out but here it is. School and work have been pretty hellish lately.
> 
> Anyway, this marks the introduction of the "saving the world through literature" element. I want to note that I am NOT as great a poet as Kaneki would be, so please pretend that the poems appearing here and in the future are better than they actually are.
> 
> Additional Notes:  
> -I read up on Touka's wiki page and apparently she doesn't live in Anteiku like I thought she did? She has an apartment in canon??? Yeah no I'm not doing that. She lives in Anteiku, as does Kaneki and Hinami (Just imagine that the upstairs is big enough for three rooms and a common room, okay).  
> -YES I changed the tags to slash. It's happening.

Touka finds the first one on a crumpled up napkin, a few nights after Kaneki opened up to them. It was left on the bar where he had been sitting during his morning coffee. 

She’s picking it up to throw it away when she sees markings on it out of the corner of her eye.

It’s a poem. The neat lines of tiny characters mark it as Kaneki’s handwriting, and it’s blurred slightly in places by drops of coffee. It reads:

_ He could not help but scream  _

_ As it was torn from his lungs  _

_ The innocence, the dream  _

_ He was convinced the world had run on. _

_ He could not help but watch  _

_ As the petals dripped in red _

_ So alabaster they had been before  _

_ If only inside his head. _

_ He could not help but fight _

_ As the tide washed his past  _

_ Though his mind knew it right _

_ His heart ached from the means it had come. _

_ As the blood overtakes bone _

_ He can't help but wonder  _

_ which defines him, the mask? _

_ Or the face lying under? _

Touka re-reads it, then re-reads it again. She’s not well-versed in literature,  _ especially _ not poetry, but it makes her feel a stab of…  _ Something, _ in her heart, and she slowly smooths it out and puts it in her pocket.

She figures Kaneki wouldn’t mind if she held onto it.

\---

Kaneki talks to them, now.

Not that he was silent, before- just emotionally cut off. His conversations steered as far away from introspection as possible, if he could help it.  _ Especially _ about his time captured by Aogiri.

It took the three of them- Touka, Hide, and Kaneki- weeks of heart-to-heart chats, about  _ feelings _ and stuff, before he felt comfortable enough to share  _ anything _ about his captivity.

Even then, it wasn’t to them. He went to Yoshimura, when he felt like he was able to talk about it.

Touka knew it was because he was  _ still _ trying to get them to stop worrying about him- to protect them from having to hear about it.

But Touka can’t complain- she told him to talk to someone, but she also said it didn’t have to be  _ her. _

She just  _ expected _ it to be, for some selfish reason.

It stung like rejection, at first, and she told as much to Hide. But he reminded her that technically, Kaneki is right. Hearing about it  _ would _ have upset them, even if it’s already done. Yoshimura, though he cares for Kaneki too, would be better equipped to act as a neutral party and a calm, rational confidant.

Hide’s right, as usual. Touka has shown in the past that her emotions tend to rule her over rationality. If she hears about the things Jason did to Kaneki, she probably wouldn’t be able to stop herself from going on a rage-fueled suicide crusade against whatever is left of Aogiri.

At least he’s beginning to process it.

\---

Touka keeps finding them. 

Now that she’s looking for them, they turn up often; sheets of paper on the floor, more napkins in the trash, scribbled in the margins of spare notebooks. 

Sometimes, they're nonsense. A loose collection of words that don't lead anywhere, but still invoke a feeling because of the words used; whether that feeling is desperate, angry, sad, or something else.

Most of the time, they're poems. Some are bleak, some are beautiful, and some others are… Graphic. Lots of synonyms for the words 'flesh' and 'hunger' are used. 

She imagines that if she were human, they might disturb her. But she's a ghoul, and they don't contain any details that she hasn't experienced first hand. 

She keeps collecting them, with a small sense of guilt at the fact that Kaneki didn’t even mean for anyone to read them. She keeps telling herself she’ll throw them out, soon. 

She never does.

\---

Unfortunately, as well as Kaneki has been doing lately, it does nothing to fix his long term problem of being listed as a missing person.

He can’t call attention to himself by turning up out of the blue and trying to resume his normal human life. There would be news coverage, paperwork, and  _ far _ too many questions he can’t answer believably. 

His missing persons poster can still be found tacked onto billboards across the area, courtesy of Hide. The irony isn’t lost on him, Touka’s sure.

So he stays hidden in Anteiku, all day, every day. It’s been two months, now. Touka can’t even  _ imagine _ how restless that has made him, doing basically nothing, everyday, for two months.

Now that he feels up to it, everyone tries to spend more time with him, to help the time pass. Yomo teaches him shoji, Roma ropes him into helping her clean, Hinami asks him to do arts and crafts with her, and Koma and Irimi choose a new movie to watch with him every week. 

Most of the others end up joining in on the movie nights, as the weeks pass. Nishiki and Kimi even attend, sometimes. 

And sure, Nishiki still eyes Hide distrustfully on occasion, but most of the  _ real _ venom is gone. Touka imagines It’s kind of hard to hate a person who becomes instant best friends with your girlfriend, like Hide did with Kimi.

(Surprisingly, they have pretty similar senses of humor. They launched the formation of the ‘Humans Only Club’ within  _ minutes _ after meeting each other. On movie nights, they often build an elaborate pillow fort exclusive to members of the club.

Hinami instantly becomes an honorary member of the club and is allowed access to the fort.

Kaneki is a half-member of the club, and only allowed to put  _ half _ his body in the fort.)

At first, she isn’t sure any of this is helping him, but Kaneki assures her that he’s genuinely happy in those moments. Touka doesn’t think he’s lying- she’s seen him smile with fond grey eyes as of late. 

The thing is, he says he’s happy as if there’s a  _ ‘but’ _ needed to be added afterwards. A catch.

Touka understands, perfectly. She feels the same way. 

Because things have been so  _ good _ lately. Not perfect, or even easy- because Kaneki will sometimes slip back into old habits- but  _ better _ than she could have ever pictured, because they’re all there to help him through it.

It feels so peaceful- and they both know that it’s a bomb waiting to go off.

Something will happen, soon. Whether it’s the CCG or Aogiri Tree or something completely different, she couldn’t say- but it’s coming, and it won’t wait until they’re ready for it.

He says as much to her, late at night, after another nightmare she helped wake him from. He confesses to her that still feels as though he should be out in the world, doing  _ more _ to ensure their safety, but he doesn’t know where he would even  _ start. _

She doesn’t have the answer, either. 

Whenever they bring up the subject in his company, Hide urges both of them to wait. It frustrates her to no end, but she knows he feels the urgency, too. He knows what’s at stake, and what will happen if they just sit here and wait. 

That’s why she gets the distinct feeling that he’s planning something, and she’s fairly certain it involves the CCG. The thought of it scares her.

But, she trusts him to know what he’s doing. 

She’ll try being patient, for his sake.

\---

Touka, being the coward that she is, says nothing about the poetry to anyone for almost four months.

At this point, she has 47 of them saved- she counted. They’re all of varying lengths, ranging from a few words to paragraphs of uninterrupted thoughts. 

She has a few favorites that she revisits often, and the more she reads them, the further she feels as though they  _ mean _ something to her. 

The more she realizes that Kaneki means something…  _ Big, _ to her.

Something heavy- but somehow deceivingly light at the same time- fills her gut at the sense of inevitability. These poems- these small ramblings that made her feel things just from words alone- are  _ his.  _

Of course. Of  _ course _ \- no one has ever made her  _ feel _ as much as he has.

Except-

_ Except- _

That’s not entirely true, is it?

Because Hide is right there too- making her laugh almost daily, seeing past her uncaring mask, cementing himself as part of her heart.

With Kanek it felt inevitable- like gravity. A black hole of kindness that drew her in and left her wanting more. 

With Hide- it’s joyful surprise; unexpected laughter- it’s sunshine through the clouds when she expected nothing but rain.

She wants to be disappointed in herself that she let him in  _ so _ easily, but nothing involving Hide has ever felt shameful.

And really- she should have expected it. Hide is exactly like Kaneki in the fact that he gives out his affection so freely- so completely. 

So much unlike her.

She’s taken to watching them interact, sometimes. And again- she can’t read people like Hide can- but it’s  _ so  _ obvious to see the absolute gravity of just how much they  _ mean _ to each other. 

The intensity of gratitude mixed with adoration in Kaneki’s eyes when Hide talks to him through an intrusive thought. The overwhelming fondness in Hide’s gaze when he watches Kaneki gently lift Hinami into his lap. The way they have a lifetime of experiences together that they refer to, sometimes.

She notices, especially, how Hide looks at Kaneki when he thinks no one can see him. It’s… Well, the only word she can think of it as is…  _ Aching. _

(The voice in the back of her head hisses in jealousy while she watches, sometimes. 

_ At best, _ it tells her,  _ you’re a third wheel, an accessory. At worst, you’re an outsider, a stranger, a voyeur. They’ve known each other their whole lives. Why would either of them look at  _ you?)

She  _ would _ be bitter- hold a grudge at Hide’s higher chances of success- but Touka can’t even fault him. She’s so far gone, in fact, that she finds the opposite is true- it only endears him to her  _ more, _ because they have common ground. 

Because she looks at him looking at Kaneki, and she thinks,  _ me too.  _

She finds herself wanting to say it aloud to him, most days. To bring them closer, somehow- to bond over being devoted to the most stupidly selfless nerd in the whole world.

That’s why, when Hide is in the middle of telling her a story over lunch in the common room about the time Kaneki wrote poetry for their school paper and got so nervous he threw up- she doesn’t even think about it. Her mouth spews the words before her brain catches up.

“He’s been writing poems and stuff for months and I’ve been saving them, wanna see?”

“What?” Hide’s face is blank, uncomprehending.

She backtracks, looking at her hands nervously. “You know how Kaneki has been writing recently?”

“...Yeah, actually,” He says, after a pause, “I actually asked him about it, once- he avoided the question. I- I thought no one else really noticed. Why?”

“I’ve been… Well, I think it might just be better to show you,” She says, and stands, motioning for him to follow her. They walk out of the common room and down the hallway, past Kaneki’s room where he currently sleeps. They take care to quiet their steps- they both know he needs to make up for the little sleep he got last night wrestling with his thoughts. 

They arrive at her door, and she opens it and strides in. 

She looks back to find Hide lingering on the threshold, giving her a shit-eating grin. She’s suddenly overly aware of the fact that Hide has never seen her room before. 

“What?” She growls, crossing her arms and just  _ daring _ him to comment on all of her stuffed rabbits.

“Well, It’s just- It’s so very  _ forward _ of you to invite such a  _ handsome _ man into your quarters completely  _ unsupervised, _ my Lady,” Hide says, and mimics swooning with a hand to his forehead, “If I had any idea you harbored such  _ scandalous _ sentiment towards my personhood, I would have-”

“Shut up and get in here,” she bites out, and hides the fact that her face is probably flushing bright red by grabbing his hand and pulling him inside.

He closes the door behind him and then it’s just the two of them.

In her room.

Holding hands.

Hide says nothing, and he’s looking at her with a ghost of a grin still on his face. The sunlight filtering through her window is catching his eyes, turning a dark amber into almost gold. 

His hair is so long, now. long enough to be pulled back, she thinks. She wonders if the dyed ends feel different than the darker roots now slowly overtaking them. She raises her hand to see for herself.

And then she  _ stops- _ because…  _ What!? _

Holy  _ fuck _ what is she  _ doing!? _

She drops his hand and turns on her heel so fast she nearly falls over. She kneels down, digs under her bed for the box, and pretends with all her might that the past few seconds didn’t happen.

She’s becoming far too comfortable with affection, lately. Between movie nights and panic attacks and heartfelt discussions, she’s almost forgotten to bury her feelings down. Her mask of cool indifference has been thinning ever since Kaneki crashed his way into her life, and it scares her how much she feels, sometimes. How vulnerable it makes her.

She fumbles with the beat up old shoebox, finally second guessing her decision to show Hide the poems. What if he thinks it’s creepy for her to have collected them? 

She grits her teeth. It’s too late now- she has to suck it up and follow through.

Touka turns around, box in hand. She pats the ground next to her for Hide to sit, and he does so with childish excitement. She opens the box and takes out each paper one by one, laying them out on the floor in front of her in order of oldest to newest.

“Kaneki… Has been writing. A lot. Even more than these, I think. These are just the ones he throws away,” She says, and watches Hide for his reaction.

He’s staring, wide eyed, at the collection being presented to him. She can’t tell if it’s shock or awe or something else, and she feels fear take root in her stomach.

“Well?” She asks, and her voice cracks, because apparently the world hates her.

Then Hide starts laughing.  _ Loudly. _ Her face burns in shame, and rage quickly follows. Before she can yell at him, however, he reaches for his pocket and pulls out a napkin. His laugh dies out as he sets it on the ground and smooths it out.

She recognizes Kaneki’s writing instantly.

“Like I said. I thought no one else noticed. Looks like great minds think alike, huh?” He says, and smiles knowingly at her, like they’re sharing a private joke.


End file.
